Super Street Fighter 2 HD Remix started out as a remake of Street Fighter Alpha 3. Lead designer David Sirlin felt that Alpha 3's large roster would make the development process more difficult. He also believed that the game's lack of approval by the hardcore community would harm the game's sales, so he pushed Capcom so that they could work on SF2 instead.

David Sirlin also confirmed that the development team scrapped 2,500 animation frames in development because they weren't satisfied with how they turned out.